Reversing our usual wont, tonight we comment upon what is not news rather than upon what the newsfolk are belaboring. We thought that a change would be restful.

Opening this package comes naturally with both Ebola and ISIS, two stories apparently deprived of news value by the accomplishment of the Congressional elections. But those are a fat pitch to any batter; there are more interesting and less obvious invisibilities:

An obvious news negligence is Ukraine, that one might assume is suddenly not being invaded by incognito Russian military. But unfortunately, it is news interest rather than Russians retreating from there. Russia has in fact, apparently added tanks and field guns to its non-existent expeditionary offensive. The Russian economy is not doing well under NATO sanctions resulting (which hardship may have motivated the attack in the first place) and we hear that the government has given up supporting the declining ruble in favor of allowing it to float. That last may help exports, not the hapless populace. None of this is news in America.

Drought too is uninteresting; a town is California is experiencing water thieves and Brazil’s Sao Paulo – the largest city in South America – sees economic decline from its water shortage. But any interest in these has dried up.

Unemployment continues do decline in the U.S, while simultaneously, the percentage of the population remaining in the workforce (reported from a different agency) continues its decline. It now matches the proportion from the 1970’s, when housewives were still common. Nary a peep … And if there is any unemployment in Greece or Spain, it is a state secret in Washington. (And folk wonder why U.S. voters are restive?)

Our President, committed publicly as he is to the “most open Administration in history” or some such, is hobnobbing with the Iranian mullahs about their evident (though denied) nuke plans, also without a peep. He cannot seem to understand why this worries anyone (You can keep your doctor). In fairness, given North Korea and Pakistan, what’s he supposed to do, actually? Other than of course, being honest about it.

Then there’s the shyness of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, that began erupting steadily in June and is just now using oncoming lava streams to burn down a town; its first victim being a shed and today, a home. Slow motion lava one supposes, isn’t exciting, We note that the conflagration did make it to Fox news this evening … 5 months along. Volcanoes we guess, are boring unless people are screaming or tossing in virgins.

Another State Secret must lie amidst this map of world Homicide Rate, we never hear of No. 1 gun owner America’s middling murder rate among world statistics. Why would that be?

Too, the are the Mysteriously Missing Mexican students. A busload (43) of Mexican high school kids driven into a town in the State of Guerrero, abruptly went missing. While it was mentioned here at the time, there has been little since. But in Mexico, it has become an enormous political scandal that has to date, cost the Governor of Guerrero his position and led to the arrest of the Mayor of the town and his wife and the police chief as well. Seems the kids were some of those protesting in the streets of the town and on the Mayors’ orders, were stopped by the police on departure. The police apparently killed 6 of them; the rest were handed to local drug cartel gangsters who did for the remainder. This got out and has enraged the already unhappy public all over Mexico. Protests have been going on unheralded in the U.S. and this has inflamed an existing volatile atmosphere in the country. But the Rio Grande seems, though porous as a cheap raincoat for drug smugglers and illegal aliens, effectively soundproof against this sort of news …

On the other hand of course, to be fair, we must credit the steely-eyed hell-for-leather journalists with informing us from far-off Cathay that our indomitable President arrived there safely, donned a blue silk robe and chewed gum. Perhaps it is unfair to claim that journalism is dead when there are still some of its zombies extant …

And His Obamaship just announced that the government must regulate the Internet, where we have been learning these otherwise unreported items, so that “… it works for everyone.”

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About Jack Curtis

Suspicious of government, doubtful of economics, fond of figure skating (but the off-ice part, not so much)